Svalbard again

The last week I have spent again guiding around Svalbard. This time a group of primarily Australian passengers went with me and my colleagues from Aurora Expeditions. Polar bears were again high on the agenda, and we went had several crowd pleasers out on the sea ice. We manage to reach the remote Kvitøya as the first ship this season. All of the 9 bears but one came close to our ship or zodiacs, and all passengers were of course very happy. It is all about finding the right kind of bears, not the total number of bear sightings.

We also found at least four Blue whales (blåhval) on this trip, actually almost as many as our Fin whales (finhval). But then again, we did search out the good areas for Blues and didn’t go so much after the fins this time. Blue whales have, if you know where to go, become fairly easy to find around the Svalbard waters. Apart from great bear and whale sightings, we had Arctic foxes (fjellrev) hunting geese, Walrus (hvalross) fights and both Ivory gull (ismåke) and Sabine’s gull (sabinemåke) made it to the trip list as well. The most remarkable sighting bird wise, even though not a new species for my Big year list, was three Great-northern divers (islom) in a possible breeding area at the east coast. A species that is very rare in Svalbard indeed. We also found a new spot with very accessible Puffins (lunde) for photography. Something I have been searching for in Svalbard for some time. Puffins are always very high on foreign tourists’ wish list when they come to Svalbard.

Next week, I will have another guiding tour for Aurora Expedition. Hopefully I manage to add something to my Big Year list this time – but it will have to be a rarity.

This bear stayed with us for an hour, and apparantly he liked being taken
pictures of. No, it is not a circus bear, just a crowd pleaser.

Even though being big and heavy, polar bears can be cery gentle as well. This
one was showing its body control by climbing along the ledges feeding on
 guillemot chicks. He even manged to take an adult!

The world's largest mammal ever lived on earth. We found four blue whales
on our voyage. 

Brünnich's guillemot (polarlomvi) throwim himself out from the bird cliff. 

This voyage, we found a very nice spot for puffin photography. A colony of
about one hundred birds, and many of them in only a fewww meters distance.
For sure the best place to photograph this species in Svalbard.

Until next time....

-EG-

Big Year in Svalbard

It has been a while. The reason is that I am doing my annual Arctic visit. Doing a Big Year means spending a lot of money on travelling, flights, car rental, toll roads and let alone petrol. Now I have moved to Svalbard for most of the summer to earn some money. This means two things. I miss out on an unknown amount of rarities that turns up on the mainland Norway. First half of June is usually a very good period for rare birds, so this might be the thing that actually can make me fail the record attempt. On the other hand, I make some money working as a polar bear and photo guide, and I get to see some of the Arctic specialties that are pretty hard to tick off on the mainland. It also means that I am out of internet most of the time, so that my blog only get updated when I spend a few hours ashore every tenth day or so.

On my way to Svalbard, I had an overnight stop to tick off one the rarest breeding birds in Norway. Valdakmyra in Porsanger in the very northernmost part of Norway is the only place where Lesser white-fronted goose (dverggås) is possible to see. So on the 30^th May I went on an overnight trip. On the way there, I had a few hours in Tromsø, where I managed to tick off Temminck’s stint (temmincknipe) and pay the most expensive bus ride of my life so far. NOK45 for a 7 minutes bus ride is pretty steep even for a Norwegian. I also discovered that one of my favoruite birding areas in near the town had been sacrificed to build a longer runway at the airport. A few hours later I was meeting up with Tomas and Ingar, who are doing research and monitoring work on the Lesser white-fronted goose. The weather was incredible, and a beautiful midnight sun, some fried fish on the pan with a bon fire and a stunning view over the Valdakmyra nature reserve where about 50 ruff were lekking, 6 lesser white-fronted geese feeding and displaying Jack snipe (kvartbekkasin - another Big Year bird) on the sky made this to an unforgettable night. Short-eared owl (jordugle) and a Hawk owl (haukugle) were hunting nearby as well. I didn’t even bother to go into the lavo to sleep, but just put my sleeping bag on the ground with some rein deer skin as a sleeping mat (sami style). Very nice indeed.

The next day, I woke up early. However, Willow grouse (lirype) and a local Blue throat (blåstrupe) were up much earlier and had been displaying their colors and song all night long. I then went on my two o’clock flight to Svalbard. The next day, I was meeting new clients for another Svalbard adventure.

New birds: 3

Total: 257

 

Off we went, for the next 9 days we were searching for polar bears and other Arctic inhabitants that was the main objective of the trip for the international group of photographer onboard our vessel. With the current ice conditions, things looked very promising indeed. I do work exclusively for WildPhoto Travel as a photoguide in these areas. WildPhoto organizes trips in Svalbard, Galapagos, and the Antarctic, and the small team of 5, where 3 of us are professional photographers ensures that our clients come home with high quality pictures. In my opinion (and this might sound like bragging), the experience of the local areas and wildlife and our photography skills that the WildPhoto team represents, makes WildPhoto the very best choice available for photography trips in Svalbard. However, on this trip, finding a close up polar bear proved a bit more challenging than ideal. Despite seeing at least 14 bears – none of them came in very close. But we did see them hunting, feeding on a ringed seal in front of amazing glacier cliffs and of course some stunning landscape and birds made this to yet another very satisfying trip indeed. For my Big Year list, I haven’t seen anything unexpected but good birds such as Grey phalarope (polarsvømmenipe), Brünnich’s guillemot and Ivory gull (ismåke) – in my mind the jewel of the Arctic - ensured 3 more birds added on the list. The latter put on a very good show around our small ship, while waiting for 8 polar bears on the ice to approach our ship. 

Every Svalbard expedition needs some Fulmar pictures (havhest) to be complete

I know this is a birding blog at the moment, but guiding people to
great polar bear (isbjörn) experiences is after all very high on the agenda during
my stay here.
 

Ivory gull (ismåke), THE reason for birders to visit Svalbard, and new to my
Big Year list. Big Year bird #260.

Arctic tern (rödnebbterne) showing off.

....and more fulmar (havhest)...one or four?

Mixed flock of king eider (praktärfugl) and common eider (ärfugl) in front
of a typical Svalbard scenery.

 

 

Anyway, I now have only two more birds I am sure to add on my Big Year list up here. But who knows what happens – surprises happens when you least expect them to J

 

New Birds: 3

Total: 260       

W I N N E R !

I am both flattered, humble and of course proud, to announce that my image of a polar bear taken last year has been awarded the winner of the Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the year, Animal portrait category 2010!

This competition is considered to be  the most prestigeous of all nature photo competitions. This year, there were a stunning 31 000 entries from more than 80 different countries! As many times before, I was on an seabird expedition for the Norwegian Polar Institute when this bear approached. We retreated into our zodiac, to not risk any unfortunate incidents before we started to photograph this very curious bear. When taking picture of nature, safety for the animal or bird I am working with is always of first priority!

I am also very pleased to see that there were images from no less than three other Norwegian photographers at the exhibtion. Tom Schandy, Roy Mangersnes and Orsolya Haarberg all achieved honorable mention in this very prestigeous competition. This shows that Norwegian nature photography are really at the high end amongst the world's nature photography buisness.

The exhibition with all the winning and highly commended images will now tour the world, and is expected to have more than one million visitors world wide before the end of next year.

-EG-

Svalbard Guiding

The first week of August, I was guiding a group of photographers for a ten-day trip on Svalbard. I like going with a small group size and small boats. This way you get a much more intimate experience with the Arctic landscape, harshness and of course most importantly also the wildlife. Even though we might be a bit more vulnerable to the weather and ice, we almost always find all the things we are looking for. I have now eight years of experience working as a fieldbiologist/guide on Svalbard.


Some of the highlights the last trip were Pomarine- and Long-tailed skuas, total of 4 Sabine’s gull (3 observations), 20 ivory gulls in front of a fantastic blue glacier, Polar bear killing an Arctic fox puppy and all possible seal species on Svalbard including Harbour-, Hooded and Harp seal. We missed out a bit on the cetaceans due to bad whale searching conditions, but we managed to photograph Belugas in front of blue ice and addtionally a large flock of about 70 animals in one of the west coast fjords. A jumping minke whale was quite spectacular to see and photograph as well. The highlight of the trip happened when we had belugas, sabine’s gulls, polar bear and a spectacular calfing blue glacier in the same view at the same time! All this and more together with stunning landscapes, means only one thing – happy clients!

Watching seven polar bears feeding on a whale carcass was a memorable experience for the whole group - including the guide

 

A polar bear is close to getting crushed under falling ice

 
 

Svalbard is one of few places in the world, where you can expect to see the increasingly rare ivory gull.

 
 

Glaciers are vital to the extreme biomass productivity in many of the fjords of Svalbard. Thousands of kittiwakes feeding on amphipods is an unforgettable nature spectacle.

Minke whale breaching! On the last trip, we had about 15 sightings of this spectacular whale.

Every trip is different from the last one, so time will show what we find next time.











At the moment I am attending a scientific expedition, and although we have seen a few ivory gulls and pomarine skuas, no big surprises have be seen yet. One of the first days in the drift ice west of Spitsbergen we came across about 40 Fin whales, one Blue whale. No less than five blue whales have been seen so far on the trip. A Polar bear on a seal kill was also seen, but photographing these things from a big ship is far from ideal….

The giant of the sea! The blue whale, the world's largest animal, is a regular sight in certain areas of Svalbard. Note the embarrasing small dorsal fin and blue grey colour compmared to the more or less equally sized fin whale seen in the next image.

A flock of fin whales in the drift ice on Svalbard.

I only do guiding on chartered boats, so if you want to use my services for a Svalbard expedition you will have to book early as both my own schedule and the boat charter is allready starting to fill up for the exciting year ahead.


If you want to see sights like this through your camera lens – then you should go wild with WildNature.no!

-EG-